A Diary of Desolation
by TomorrowGirl
Summary: The lonely story of a girl who no one expected to survive. Rated Hard T for some heavy themes.
1. Falling

**a/n: I really liked the idea of doing an oc story from the 100 but from the point of view of someone who wasn't part of the 100 delinquents so I thought why not make her a survivor from factory station that nobody knew actually survived.**

 **This is going to be a sort of drabble series, documenting her struggles as she takes on life on the ground and how she has to go through this journey of survival (mainly*) alone.**

 ***She will come across people from the canon verse that we already know along the way, both grounders and skaikru**

 **Please, read review, follow and favorite if you enjoy!**

* * *

She was falling.

At first she hadn't been concerned, instead excited, exhilarated.

She was going to the ground.

Her and the rest of the people strapped up inside Factory station, clinging to their parents, to their best friends with glittering eyes and hands clasped tight full of hope.

Amreen had no family with her, nor any friends really as the only one person she did have; her brother Cyrus-who wasn't actually her brother but a boy her father had decided to take under his wing after he had been orphaned- had dropped to the ground when the council had decided to send the 100 delinquents in prison to earth; to see if it was survivable. Now they knew it was survivable and now she could finally get to see him again.

That was if she would make it out of the drop alive.

Because everything was going so smoothly, too easy, and then they pushed through the atmosphere and then it wasn't. Everything had started to go terribly, terribly wrong.

She was falling.

In her excitement she hadn't secured herself into her harness correctly, the makeshift seat belt hadn't been tied around her properly, leading to her being thrown this way and that, like a limbless ragdoll as the ship flipped almost entirely upside down. She smacked against the hard metallic interior with a force that sent an ache vibrating through her nerves and bones. Amreen hadn't even managed to make it to the ground yet and she was already battered with bruises and small cuts.

Everyone screamed and so did she.

Her stomach was in her mouth as the ship turned on an opposite angle, jolting violently and she gripped her harness in her hands with such ferocity that she was certain the material had started to cut through her palms and burn them with the friction. Her legs flailed and her eyes were already streaming with the terrified tears that she couldn't even think to hold back.

And that wasn't even the worst of it but she oh so wished it was.

Factory station had started to crumble, tearing away piece by piece; some of the roof was missing, and then the wall and then all of the roof and then she could see blue and white.

Sky and clouds.

She could see shapes moving through the sky through her blurry tear stained vision. Birds?

Bile rose in her throat.

Not birds people. Her people.

They were falling.

And some of them were on fire.

She could smell it, the strong putrid smell of charred flesh and metal, the cries and screams that she knew she would never let go of. She had grew up with these people, seen their faces for a whole 20 years of her life and now, now she was watching them burn. And she was most likely going to join them.

A sob wracked her shoulders and her fingers trembled, blood was starting to stain her hands and the vibrant yellow cord in it that she clutched as if it were to be her saviour, but she knew it wasn't, she knew there was no saviour.

The ship was heading straight for the cliff face of the nearest mountain, as if factory station had been placed under a curse and every bad thing that could happen to them was going to. She whimpered.

"Cyrus" She cried, the name tumbling off her lips; she knew she wasn't going to make it. None of them were.

 _May we meet again._

She thought, but then shook the thought from her head. She was still breathing wasn't she?, she still had time, to think, to act, to do, do something-

Sparks sputtered around her, some kind of internal mechanics in the wall had give way, and she shrieked eyes snapping shut at the blinding explosion. She was on fire, her hands moved to swat away the embers, and she was too late to realise her mistake. She had let go of the only thing keeping her inside the ship.

She was falling.

Amreen flailed, reaching out with arms and leg sporadically, trying to grab something; she grabbed someone's leg and met them with pleading eyes. The man clung to his harness and kicked her, kept kicking her away until she had no choice but to surrender to the sky and she felt the tears flooding again. She had grown up with these people and they wouldn't help her, they didn't care about her; it was every man for himself now.

The deathly grip of gravity makes her stomach lurch, and she can hear herself screaming, her throat burning raw. But then she realises there is no way out and she accepts her imminent face. At least she would make it to the earth eventually-if not alive. A small sense of freedom and weightlessness enters her body, and it is over too quickly as her final breaths are stolen by a confusing and startled gasp.

She feels branches and leaves scratch her face then suddenly she comes to a stop.

Amreen opens her eyes and finds that the ground is still plenty feet away from her and she is hanging there limply, achingly. Hanging by her unzipped jacket and her hood.

The articles of clothing had tangled into the leafy limbs that had reached for her as she had fell, and they had snatched her with no plan to let go of the jacket anytime soon.

She allowed herself to breath for a moment. Just a moment because a moment was all she had.

Factory station had collided with the cliff-face, exploding in a horrific mess of fire and screams and shrapnel and debris. Her ears rattled, ringing and she wondered with alarm if there was permanent damage caused.

She could feel the heat of the flames scorching her back, blazing from underneath and around her, she had to scramble, slip her arms out of the jacket and then pull herself up onto the branch with a strength she never knew she had and cling to the tree like a koala she'd seen in an old documentary of exotic animals once; all to stop some debris from wiping her out.

She made the mistake of looking around and witnessing her world burn.

Amreen had thought that she was overwhelmed by the sudden realisation. They were all dead and dying, and she was stuck in this tree and she didn't know what to do next.

Cyrus would know what to do. Oh how she wished she was with him.

She thought, and then despite how scared and traumatised she was; she had a renewed vigor to keep going. She had to find Cyrus.

 _What would Cyrus do..._

She repeated the mantra in her mind as she scanned her surroundings, there didn't seem to be a way down to the bottom of the cliff that wouldn't result in her death, but she didn't let that panic her, Cyrus wouldn't have let it panic him. He would have thought of another way...another way.

Up.

She lifted her head and for the first time in having to go through this whole ordeal she smiled.

There was a rather large ledge not too far away from her, a ledge to her left that she could use as a starting point to scale up the cliff.

Her only problem now was getting onto it.

She was still shaking, though now she wasn't sure what the cause of it was and her ears were still ringing, her cuts were stinging now that she remembered them. But she had to keep moving.

She had to jump.

It was the only way she was going to make enough distance to reach the ledge.

Amreen swallowed a long breath, carefully pulling herself up to her feat, balancing on the branch like it was a beam, holding onto the spindly trunk of the tree to support herself.

She was thankful for the fact that she had learned how to dance during recreation when she was a child, she would never have been able to keep upright on such a small surface otherwise.

Locking her eyes on her destination she held her breath.

 _Do it Amreen. Do it. You need to jump._

And then she did. Pushing off the trunk with as much force as she could she jumped.

And once again she was falling.


	2. Broken

Amreen had jumped too high, miscalculated and there was nothing for her to grip hold of as she hits the crumbling wall with a squeal and a smack.

The force she hits against the rock wall crushes the breath out of her and she knows her ribs on her left side are damaged, the dust and gravel sting her eyes; then she crumples, like an abandoned doll thrown across a room by a toddler in a tantrum.

She hit's the floor of the ledge with a painfully loud and horrible impact. A soundless scream escapes her as her shoulder threatens to slip out of it's socket, her fingers bend at an unnatural angle and then break; and then she smashes against the ground. Then, as if things weren't hellish enough, she was barely allowed time to try and recover as the ledge started to crack, and crumble.

Then it broke.

She dragged herself as close to the wall as possible, narrowly avoiding a plummeting death as the wide ledge became much thinner.

She wheezed out, spluttering as she tried to get her breath back,which was hard given how much pain and panic was pumping through her bloodstream. Even with the threat of the possibilty of what was left of the ledge breaking away, she couldn't climb like this; she was trapped.

Getting on her knees she gritted her teeth biting into her lip and drawing blood as she screeched whilst pushing her two left fingers straighter. She manages to tear a scrap of fabric from her shirt and then bind them, shaking and hysterical as she does so and the tears stream down her face as she tries to calm her pulse, but the pain has introduced a fever into her system and she was shaking like a leaf. She was going to die out here.

She had no saviour.

"Help me! Someone help!"

The call was muffled, she was barely able to make out the words; words that weren't hers.

Someone else was out there.

Through blurred vision she could see a figure hanging from a sprouted branch. Another survivor from factory station, another girl that was doomed to the same fate as Amreen.

She watches as a red rope is lowered down to the girl, and she tries to shout, to alert the girl's rescuer that she needs saving too. She finds herself too late to try and do so as the inky darkness of unconsciousness steals her away.

* * *

The next thing she knew she was being jostled, an agonized moan left her lips and then her eyelids fluttered open. Pain radiated through her skull and she groaned again, head lolling against a warm shoulder as hands moved to grab her and lift her to her feet.

"Amreen, Hey Amreen!"

A hand was gripping her chin and she blinked rapidly trying to get her sight to focus. Brown eyes were studying her with a concerned expression and then a canteen of water was passed to her lips.

"Cyrus," She mumbled.

Find Cyrus. She needed to find Cyrus.

She tried explaining this to whoever it was currently holding her, but her words and her mind and her body were all disconnected and all she could do was utter her brothers name.

"Hey, hey it's Bellamy, we're going to get you up and take you back to the others okay?"

Her brows furrowed, she had missed more than half of what he had said, what, what had he said his name was?

"Bellamy?"

She didn't register his nodding, the hazy stupor from unconsciousness was taking it's time to leave her, and her mind was currently more than a little disjointed.

She felt broken.

He tried to hide his concern for her current state but she managed to catch the alarm in his eyes.

"Yeah Bellamy Blake, do you remember me? You worked with my mother mending clothes."

The puzzle pieces fell into place and she could finally match his freckled face to a memory.

"You're the one with the sister."

She heard him sigh in relief.

"Yeah Octavia, good, yeah."

Looping her arm over his shoulder he then handed her some kind of sharp metal tool, to which she stared at blankly.

"My friends are gonna pull us back up, but it's not so stable around this part of the cliff so were going to have to help them out."

He then pointed to the piece of metal in her hands.

"That's a climbing axe, it'll help anchor us, i'm going to keep hold of you so you'll need to dig it into the rock to help them lift us, think you can do it?"

Amreen looked at Bellamy then to the wall. She nodded.

She had to do this. She had to get to Cyrus.

"Okay here we go. You guys, pull us up!"

He shouted upwards, and Amreen was starting to relax under the thought of being safe now, she'd been rescued and she'd get to go back to the rest of the arkers; to Cyrus.

Then she wondered if it wasn't the factory station drop ship that had been cursed but herself, as atleast the others from factory had faced a much swifter death.

Bellamy had decided to shift her weight in his arms to allow the group at the top to pull them both up faster, hoisting her up with a hand squeezing her injured ribs unknowingly and she let out a screech and through panic she had slipped from his hold.

Bellamy reached for her but she had ghosted through his fingers as they brushed over her clothing. Her arms flapped like a flightless bird and she hacked at the rock wall with the tool in her hand to try and stop her descent but it just wouldn't stay put and she kept stopping then slipping, then stopping and slipping all the way down the cliff until she was collapsed against the ledge she'd started off on.

"Amreen dammit, are you alright?"

Amreen laughed. Alright? Was he expecting her to answer that question with a yes or something alike? Of course she wasn't alright. She'd sent more time on Earth in it's skies than on the ground as of yet, and every time she had hope of being safe it had shattered.

She responded back to him with some rather colourful discourse, which he seemed to take as a good sign, and then he was being lowered back down to take her to the top again.

Neither of them had noticed that Amreen's fall had created a slowly growing fissure in the already unstable ledge.

Neither of them expected it to disintegrate as Bellamy reached out a hand to her as she pushed the climbing axe into the ledge to help pull herself to her feet.

The ledge was falling to the ground in boulders and a cloud of dust and again so was she.

The ledge had broken and so had her hope of being rescued.

She fell at such a rapid pace that the climbing axe started to create sparks as she hacked at the wall to bring herself to a stop, and again it just wasn't sticking into the rock.

It lodged into a sprouted branch on the cliff and through the blood rushing in her ears she could barely hear the sound of Bellamy yelling at her telling her to hold on because she had fell too low and now they needed to make a bigger rope.

Then the climbing axe ripped out the sprouted branch by it's roots and she had just enough breath to scream out a profanity, and then she was falling again until she wasn't.

If she ever saw Bellamy again she'd yell at him and probably slap him for giving her such a shitty tool.

She could just barely make out his silhouette before the world rolled inside her head and she fell into darkness.

* * *

Dead.

They had left her on the cliff face, abandoned all hope of saving her, because after every injury and fall she had endured they had assumed she was dead. Her life wasn't worth the hassle of putting another at risk and increasing the number of casualties, especially not when she may not have even made it back to camp alive with her wounds. It was the logical thing to do, they had atleast attempted to get her, and she understood their reasoning to decide to leave her behind.

They had probablly shouted to her when she was unconsciousness and took the lack of response as a fatal injury.

They hadn't known she would have survived the other fall, she didn't think she would have either.

They thought she was dead, had left her, and the realisation that she had been left utterly alone, with broken hopes of being saved hurt her more than the wounds she had sustained.

Unless she decided to save herself.

 _There has to be another way. Find another way._

Sucking in a breath Amreen pulled herself to her feet, biting her lip to ignore her protesting limbs and using the climbing axe as a crutch, since she was sure she had sprained an ankle. She swayed on her feet as the world around her focused into turning upright and she scanned her surroundings.

The ground was still too far away for her to reach so that was completely out of the question.

She started walking along the narrow surface, vertigo causing her to stumble into a boulder, painting the sandy coloured rock pink with her blood. Her lip curled at the grim sight of it and she pulled herself back up clutching her side with one hand and the climbing axe with the other.

Her dark eyes brightened a little.

She had found her escape.

An almost unnoticeable rubble pathway that wrapped all the way around the cliff face. It would include a lot of walking and jumping, and then eventually some climbing, but it was her best shot.

This was her other way.

At the top of the cliff she saw green and fell to her knees.

She had made it.

She wasn't dead. Just a little broken.

* * *

 **a/n: I had planned to get this out two days earlier but I accidentally deleted half of it in editing so I had to rewrite. So I apologize for the wait, next one shall come much sooner.**

 **Thank you to everyone who has read, followed, favourited and reviewed, you guys make me all the more eager to write.**

 **Also feel free to let me know who and what you'd like to see, I'm open to suggestion :-)**


	3. Prey

**A/n: Thank you to all of you who have read, reviewed, followed and favourited, it mean a lot knowing you guys are liking my work :D**  
 **Amreen's hasn't had it easy so far, but then who on the hundred ever does? xD She's a tough bird though so she'll try to keep her head held high through it all.  
She does get some help in this chapter...though it doesn't quite come in the form she would have liked.**

* * *

She flickered her gaze around the woodland, wondering were to go from here. She paused, squinting through the dark and listened. It was cold and she was tired, she had been walking for so long, just walking with no clear direction, nothing driving her but the fact that she had to keep moving, she'd find her people eventually; that was if the monsters on the ground didn't find her first. Her thumping heart skipped, before dropping as she composed herself.

 _You've' made it this far. You can do it Amreen, you can make it back to Cyrus._

A moth bounced off of a leaf from a bush, flying past her face. She lifted her head, straining her ears to listen, finding nothing but the soft hum off the nightlife of the woodland. She stopped by a stream, her throat burning and her tongue dry and she eagerly drank the liquid from the cup she formed with her hands. The cold liquid dripped down her chin, down her throat, creating clean streaks through the patterns of dirt and grime and blood caked to her body.

She started to move again when the temperature significantly dropped. She needed to find safety, find a fire or else the horrors of the ground wouldn't be the ones to take her to the other side but exposure would.

 _Find safety, then find food, then find Cyrus._

Keep moving.

A branch snapped behind her and she whipped her head around, the self-assurance she had built up diminished. Leaves rustled and she shuddered at the sight of a thick black shadow moving a short distance away from her. Amreen told herself it was some kind of woodland creature settling itself down for the night. She had to tell herself that in order to keep calm, though alarm bells were starting to flare up in her head.

She had wondered why her wailing and screaming and crying hadn't attracted anyone or anything yet, especially when she knew there were things, people, grounders out there. The 100 had warned the arkers about the volatile hunters when they radioed to tell them they were alive, well mostly alive at least.

She knew why they had took so long to come for her, they were hunters used to these sounds, used to the squealing.

Because prey often squealed.

They were biding their time, baiting her, waiting to capture.

She was prey.

To stop herself from breaking she painted the image of a Utopian scenery in her mind.

This place would be so much more beautiful in the sunlight and she wouldn't be so on edge moving throughout the trees during the day. The tree's would be covered in lush green leaves, the earth fresh with the imprints of animals and birds chirping happily as the sun glittered among the softly rippling streams.

At night though, as the ground currently stood it was a terror; every shadow looking like something deadly waiting to pounce, and every rustle and blow of wind was causing her heart to race in anxiety.

Another twig snapped. Closer.

She swallowed her breaths as silently as she could, tried to hurry as fast as she could without making too much noise and without putting too much strain on her sore limbs.

The infrequent small stops she had made during her hobble through the woods had barely helped her wounds and she knew to make a decent recovery she would need to find somewhere safe to rest for a long while.

Fear brought her to another stop when a movement of shadow emerged in her path to home.

Broken twigs crunched.

She hesitated on her feet, before spinning around and deciding to go in a different direction. Snap. This time the breaking of twigs was coming from in front of her, and it was getting closer like someone was making a path towards her. Her blood ran cold and she pivoted once more, this time turning to her left and bolting, her feet just barely grazing the floor as she made it through the endless forest in leaps and bounds. If it weren't for the adrenaline she knew her injuries would have had her in agony.

She stopped to catch her breath in a small clearing, panting softly till her pulse calmed enough for her to hear the environment around her. Something was definitely in the woods with her. Holding her breath she stilled, listening for what it was. There was breathing, confident, slow and certainly human.

Crazily, stupidly, she wondered if it was any of her people, maybe they had saw her, and now they were trying to find her to take her back to the others. It was a stretch and she shouldn't' rely on the hope of their being someone but still she couldn't help but shout out.

"Who's there?"

She called again, and was met with nothing but human breath.

"Hello is anyone there?"

Idiot. Now they would know where she was almost definitely, she was basically telling the grounders to come for her.

"You're a god damn idiot Amreen."

She grumbled to herself, and that was when she received a response.

She couldn't be certain if it was a stirring animal or a chuckle, breathy and dark. It pricked the hairs on the back of her neck, and her blood turned as cold as the icy temperature of the night.

Another series of snaps.

They were coming from two directions. There were two things out here with her, and whatever or whoever, were now making their way over to her. She tried to shout or scream, but her voice got stuck in her throat.

Turning she sprinted off clumsily through bony trees which seemed to grab at her, the branches curling around her arms, waist and legs, tearing pieces of her shirt and jacket to shreds and scratching her arms so they bled again.

 _Keep moving, you'll be safe in no time._

She told herself, though in truth she had no idea if there was such a thing as safety anymore. She had no idea where she was going in these woods, how large the forest was or even if there was such a place for her to hide in until first light. She stumbled through the trees, wishing that she wasn't so badly injured and exhausted so she could conceal herself up somewhere high.

She was cold, she was hungry, she was tired; and now it had started to rain.

The rain made it harder for her to see, made it harder for her to move silently as she staggered through sloppy puddles, splashing water every where.

 _Too loud._

What started out as a fine mist had morphed into ricocheting droplets of water that cut through her skin, attacking her face and any other part of exposed flesh until it started to feel numb. What was that sound? She shook as it echoed towards her, taunting her. She ran and she fell.

She slid down a slippery slope, tumbling, rolling, mud and dead foliage sticking to her ripping into her skin and she choked tasting blood and dirt and rainwater in her mouth. Amreen lay there for a moment before she forced herself to her feet. She ached everywhere.

Her eyes just barely made out the scenery around her; leaves and tendrils of branches, curling around the forest, hugging the cave in the not far distance like arms of a lover, wrapping protectively around their other half, mocking her because she had no one, nothing; she was completely alone.

Amreen's teeth started to chatter.

 _Keep moving, got to keep moving. They're hunting you._

She was prey.

She wasn't going to let them catch her, she had survived a fall from the sky when no one but one other from factory station had, she had scaled a cliff side with bloody hands and dust in her eyes, that had to mean something right? Determination filled her being and she decided she wasn't going to be afraid anymore, but that was better said than done. Her mind was telling her to not be afraid, but her body wasn't listening. She was shaking in fear, and drenched in a sheen of sweat, which had mixed in with the dirt and the oozing red liquid smeared against her skin, and it was dripping down, staining into her clothing as the rain beat against her.

Don't panic. She told herself, they can't follow you forever, keep moving and you'll lose them. She inhaled deeply to calm herself, but each breath she took was shaky. Limping she managed to drag herself over to an overgrown patch of bush. The rain had stopped and she decided that since she was only a small thing, she could at least hide behind there until her assailants had passed. She folded herself into a ball, curling her hands around the climbing axe, prepared to use it as a weapon if needed, and she bit her lip and waited.

 _Be quiet. Be still. They won't find you._

She heard a pained human howl and then a thud as a body fell to the ground from a height. She closed her eyes, stopping any unshed tears from being released and hugging her knees to her chest. Footsteps were getting closer and she hoped and prayed to whatever Spirits or Gods out there, that whoever was out hunting would move on and leave her.

Amreen thought her prayers had been answered.

The heavy footsteps faded into the distance, and she let out an early sigh of relief; just as she thought she was safe, a shadow loomed over her.

She could feel their breath on her and she spun around in a crouch and lashed out with her weapon only for her fist to be crushed by a hand much larger and stronger than hers. She was roughly manhandled, dragged to her feet and spun around so her back was pressed int his chest, disallowing her to get a view of her captor. She bucked and he tightened his grip. She struggled but it was no use, she was using what was left of her depleted strength to try and break free but her captor was hardly using any of his. A voice growled in her ear, a low rumble like gravel that scratched under her skin and made her legs tremble.

"Go."

And then he had released her, thrown her forward and she had stumbled, flailing like a child that had just learnt how to walk and then she wasn't sure how but she was hurtling through the forest, not looking where she was going, just knowing that she needed to get away.

But why had he let her go?

Was it some sick game the grounders played?, were they toying with her and then going to kill her once she could take no more?

Had they helped her out of goodwill, or was she still prey?

* * *

 **A/N: please dont be afraid to tell me your thoughts, ideas, what/who you'd like to see more of, i love hearing from you guys  
P.S- i promise i'll be much nicer to Amreen next chapter...maybe ;)**


	4. Hungry

**A/N: Sorry this is later than usual, it's longer than past chapters so I hope that makes up for it a little. :D  
Also for you guys that have watched the most recent ep of the 100, are you still crying like I am? And do y'all want Heda Lexa to cross paths with Amreen at some point?  
The Prince will be coming up soon so keep an eye out!  
Also I love grounder children, so expect to see them frequently in this fic :D  
Hope you enjoy this chapter, I enjoyed writing it since it was a bit of a change to the previous ones, let me know what you think and keep reading, following, favouriting and reviewing, it's lovely hearing from you xxx**

* * *

She was tired and hungry.

After managing to find shelter, a small crumbling stone building that was missing one wall, had empty windows and a straw roof, she had finally allowed herself to settle and rest. It wasn't the best place, if it started to rain again and the wind picked up then she'd have a ton of trouble, but she didn't dare go back and try find that cave she had saw, and she was so tired that it was her best option considering her circumstances.

She had a makeshift bed of straw and a blanket that was made up of more holes than fabric, and remains of a fire that her shelters previous inhabitant had left behind. It had took her over an hour to figure out how to relight it, and even then once she had Amreen knew she couldn't have kept the embers glowing for long incase it would attract a grounder.

She had managed to warm herself up for a little while, it had eased the chill that was shaking her bones and stopped her teeth from chattering.

The warmth hadn't lasted long but it had been some sort of improvement nonetheless.

She had tried to sleep, if she slept then she wouldn't be thinking of the pain she was in and she could allow her wounds to start to heal.

But no matter how hard she tried to find sleep it seemed to want to keep it's distance from her, always out of reach no matter how far she stretched out to grab it.

And now she was hungry.

Really Hungry.

At first she had been able to ignore the hollow feeling in her stomach; it hadn't been a priority, what with her having to worry about finding somewhere to rest and an imminent death by a grounder. She knew she could handle a day or two without food anyways, she had sometimes missed meals up on the ark due to factory station always seeming to draw the short straw when it came to resources and rations.

But now her mind had settled into a relatively safe state, she hadn't heard much noise for a while, there was no footsteps, no gruff voices and hands that were throwing her about; even the animals that she knew were out there seemed to be silent, and for a moment she could appreciate the stillness.

Until a loud growl echoed around her and if anyone were there to hear it she would have probably blushed in embarrassment; because the noise had come from her.

Whereas she was more concerned with trying to avoid her pain by getting some much needed shut eye, her stomach had decided to protest loudly against the idea, until she could think of nothing else but a need for food.

Her growling stomach though, was only a small part of the problem.

She couldn't do anything about it until it started to get lighter, and what was she even supposed to eat? She could barely remember her lessons on the ark on what was good to eat and what was poison, or how to create a snare. She slammed her hands down on the cold concrete ground in frustration, suddenly wishing she had paid more attention to her teachers, but then her teenage self had never expected to find the information useful; she never thought that the ark would have the chance to go back down to earth, at least not in her lifetime anyway.

Another reason why she had to find Cyrus.

Unlike her he absorbed everything from his lessons, they intrigued him, though his teachers he had no patience for, and his lack of patience had been what had sent him to the skybox.

Unfairly sent, in Amreen's opinion. He had a brilliant mind but people struggled to understand it, and the council and the teachers on the ark refused to let his mind excel further, instead holding him back and he ultimately had snapped.

Amreen shook her head with a pitiful sigh, realizing just how much she missed him, she'd do anything to see at least someone from the ark, she didn't even care if it was Kane, she just wanted to see a familiar face that wasn't a grounder trying to kill her.

She tossed and turned until daylight, trying to shake off the lonesome thoughts, trying to ignore her growling stomach and trying to think of a plan to find food the following morning. She had decided she would go foraging for nuts and berries, convincing herself that she would remember what they were and if they were safe to eat when she saw them.

* * *

Somehow, Amreen had managed to drift off for a short while, she had found herself startling awake and reaching for the climbing axe as a shrill shriek sounded through the trees.

Her bones ached as she moved, muscles sore and she winced, careful not to tear open the cuts that had started to scab over. With caution she exited the stone house, half crouching as she hid behind the wall, peeking around it ever so slightly as she tried to determine where the screams were coming from, though her plan to move stealthily wasn't exactly thought out well, her movements were clunky and loud due to heavy limbs, and her stomach was still growling, and she swore it was getting louder each minute, threatening to reveal her location to every horror on the ground.

The shrieking became more frequent and louder, and then Amreen stumbled backwards in shock at what had appeared through the trees.

A grounder girl.

A young girl, made up of long limbs and the longest, waviest, most unruly mess of tangled blonde hair Amreen had ever seen tore through the trees, hurdling over a bush and clutching a bow and quiver over her shoulder.

But that was only part of the shocking display, as what came next was a big black furry creature that was pursuing the blonde girl.

It was hungry.

It was going to attack.

Amreen knew immediately that the child would never be able to outrun the animal, at least not for long, all it needed to do was pounce and it would take down the wraith-like girl with ease.

Amreen abandoned her hiding place as the grounder girl stumbled, catching herself just barely and ducking for cover behind a tree and then climbing up it as the jaguar pounced and just missed her.

But the grounder had dropped her bow and arrow during her mad dash to reach the tree.

The beast shook off it's miss with irration, prowling through the foliage as it stalked the base of the tree, eyeing the young girl.

It hadn't noticed Amreen and either had the child.

Biting her lip she made her way over to where the girl had dropped her weapons, picking up the salvaged bow and arrows.

She bit down harder as she gripped it with shaking hands, she had never fired a bow before, and she doubted that her broken fingers would make the situation any better.

But she had to try, she had to stop the jaguar somehow and help this girl.

But why was she so eager to help? Grounders were the enemy weren't they?

Her eyes flickered towards the blonde, whose eyes were a brilliant blue, wide and childlike and panicked. The girl didn't seem so hostile, but fierce definitley- maybe that was it, she saw something of herself in the grounder and that was what it was that made her refuse to leave the young girl to the jaguar.

Drawing in a breath she raised the bow, staring down the trembling arrow.

 _Come on Amreen, do it. You can do it. You need to do it._

She urged herself silently and with a wince as her muscles stretched, she sent the arrow into the jaguars side and it yelped.

The grounder girl noticed her then, as well as the jaguar, which was still standing and aggravated from the assault. Spinning around it locked its eyes on Amreen and her heart dropped.

"Shit."

She cursed, raising the bow again and fumbling for another arrow, but she knew she wouldn't be quick enough, her aim wouldn't be solid enough, and the weapon was more suited to long range. She toppled backwards as the creature pounced, knocking the air from her lungs and digging it's claws into her shoulders as she screamed.

She had dropped the bow but scrambled for an arrow, lodging the sharp tip into the animals flesh but it only seemed to anger the creature more. It's hot breath was on her face, teeth snapping together as she tilted her head and craned her neck to avoid a bite. Saliva dripped onto her face and then with a howl the creature slumped, it's weight crushing her before it was removed.

Disorientated, and suffering from a loss of blood she blinked, barely registering the long haired grounder girl stood over her with a bloody blade. She stared blankly as the girl wiped the knife on her raggedy blue dress before sliding it into her boot.

Amreen tried to move herself, groaning as she did so, and suddenly stopped as the grounder girl rushed to her side muttering something in an unfamiliar language. The girl pushed her wild hair behind her shoulders, the heavy matted braids and loose frizzed curls piling up on the floor as she kneeled over Amreen, setting an assortment of flowers and vials on the floor.

The girl was still speaking, Amreen was still trying to make sense of the words, trying to tell the girl she didn't speak her language but her lips were cracked, throat dry and she was struggling with her breaths.

The girl loomed in front of her, a heart shaped face with freckles dusted over a button nose, golden hair that shone brightly under the sunlight reminding Amreen of a doll she once had that had belonged to her mother.

She smiled showing dimples and said something again that Amreen did not understand, then a cool liquid was poured down her throat, and then she let out a soundless scream, black spots tainting her vision as something was pressed against her bleeding wound.

* * *

Amreen woke to the smell of an appetising aroma, wafting through the air around her, doing good to remind her of her hunger.

Her stomach growled and the young girl turned slightly, smiling at Amreen to acknowledge her before turning back to the fire she was sat beside, adjusting the meat that was cooking over it.

Amreen managed to pull herself in a sitting position, noticing that she had been moved back inside the broken house, and had been bandaged up with scraps of fabric torn from the train on the grounder girls dress.

Hearing the movement the grounder spun around, her long legs that were curled around her like a spiders limbs, untangling as she stood and made her way over to Amreen. The girl must have been barely older than the age of 12 but still managed to tower over Amreen with long limbs she hadn't quite grown into.

"You're from the sky." She said.

Startling Amreen, with her use of a different language, her language.

Amreen nodded and the girl beamed, diving excitedly beside her, blonde hair rippling everywhere with the movement.

"I'm Zel, what's your name?"

The girls voice was soft, childlike and almost timid, different from her actions that were confident and self assured.

"Amreen." She answered, and the girl repeated it, cocking her head and finishing with a dimpled smile after testing it out on her tongue.

"Pretty. Why are you alone?"

She asked with innocent curiosity, and Amreen chewed on her lip, silent for a moment. Zel waited patiently for a reply, a bird chirped and the meat cooking over the fire sputtered as its fat drained.

"When I fell from the sky, no one else made it, they...they all died and my friends probably think i'm dead too..."

She trailed off shaking her head, not waiting to dump her problems on the kid, surprised when a slender hand patted her arm gently.

"Maybe you can find them. You helped me so I didn't die, i'll help you so you don't die then you can find your friends."

The blonde said with a smile, shuffling over to the fire and removing the meat to let it cool.

Amreen found herself smiling, grateful for the young girls help, though it was bugging her why the girl had been wandering about alone, was it a custom thing for grounders? Chewing on her lip she tried to think of how to bring it up without scaring her off.

"Where do you live?

Zel paid attention to the meat first, breaking it in half and dividing it as best she could before she answered.

"A cave not too far from here, I get bored by myself so I like to explore. I'll take you home after we eat and you can rest properly."

Amreen was appalled, this girl lived on her own, no friends, family or anything; who could allow that for a child? She could hardly judge the grounders lifestyle though since the arkers and their laws weren't too dissimilar, she was sure she heard something about an 8 year old being sent to the sky box for a petty crime.

Zel joined her side again, passing her a portion of juicy meat, as her stomach grumbled. The girl nibbled daintily at hers, but Amreen hadn't bothered to think of etiquette, tearing into the meat ravenously, juices dripping down her hands and mouth as she ripped it apart and chewed.

She was Hungry.


End file.
